An unofficial, eclectic, mostly tangential, view of aspiring devotee life.
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Cows may come, cows may go, but the bull is always here.

Sunday, May 07, 2006

Creationism is a Form of Paganism

"Believing that God created the universe in six days is a form of superstitious paganism, the Vatican astronomer Guy Consolmagno claimed yesterday..."

Personally, I could care less than I probably should about the whole Intelligent Design issue, but Creationists have latched onto it and seem to be misusing it as a stepping stone to their own views. So I do try stay a little current with it. If I had the juice to be doing real work any interest would vanish rather quickly in my rear view mirror, but, stuck in this rest stop, I do have to find ways to amuse myself. So below is a link to an another article on the topic. I have excerpted some quotes I hope are thought provoking.

But first, a word from our guru:

"A blind man can walk but not see, and a lame man cannot walk but can see. Andha-pangu-nyaya. The blind man may take the lame man over his shoulder, and as he walks the lame man may give him directions. Thus combined they may work, but individually neither the blind man nor the lame man can walk successfully. Similarly, this human form of life is meant for the advancement of spiritual life and for keeping the material necessities in order..."

" "Religion needs science to keep it away from superstition and keep it close to reality, to protect it from creationism, which at the end of the day is a kind of paganism - it's turning God into a nature god. And science needs religion in order to have a conscience, to know that, just because something is possible, it may not be a good thing to do."

Brother Consolmagno, who was due to give a speech at the Glasgow Science Centre last night, entitled "Why the Pope has an Astronomer", said the idea of papal infallibility had been a "PR disaster". What it actually meant was that, on matters of faith, followers should accept "somebody has got to be the boss, the final authority".

"It's not like he has a magic power, that God whispers the truth in his ear," he said..."

A devotee should not see anything as being separate from the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krsna. Ether, fire, air, water, earth, the sun and other luminaries, all living beings, the directions, trees and other plants, the rivers and oceans -- whatever a devotee experiences he should consider to be an expansion of Krsna.
Thus seeing everything that exists within creation as the body of the Supreme Lord, Hari, the devotee should offer his sincere respects to the entire expansion of the Lord's body.

Rabindranath Tagore:

A mind all logic
is like a knife all blade.
The hand that uses it will bleed.